


Breath

by ontaemin



Category: SHINee
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Drama, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-21
Updated: 2016-06-21
Packaged: 2018-07-16 08:45:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7260643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ontaemin/pseuds/ontaemin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Taemin can't breathe he close his eyes. Deep breath after deep breath until he's positive it will never reach the bottom of his lungs, the bottom of his ever growing ocean. He holds tight. Onto himself and onto Jinki.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breath

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! So here's some angsty sad Ontae for you all! Hope this isn't too much drama for such a quick fic. I really didn't mean to write this but for some reason I was stuck on the image of Taemin laying in a hospital bed. Anyways, enjoy! xx

When Taemin can't breathe he close his eyes. Deep breath after deep breath until he's positive it will never reach the bottom of his lungs, the bottom of his ever growing ocean. He holds tight. Onto himself and onto Jinki. In his arms, so embarrassed to need him, to need the security. Jinki hums with such an unwavering sureness that everything will be fine Taemin wonders how he conceals his anxiety so well, because he knows that smile is only the top layer of a man who's falling apart. 

It's not good for either of them, really. For Taemin, the breathing is bad, sure, but knowing Jinki has to hear it is worse. Knowing Jinki has to watch someone he loves lay helpless as he gasps and cries out as if he lay at the bottom of the ocean, water flooding his lungs, weight crushing his body. Jinki's phased by it, very obviously so, but would be offended if he knew Taemin could see the fear in his eyes every time the wheezing got worse - so he never says anything. Taemin lets Jinki hold him and comfort him as if it's not doing the same for himself. Taemin lets Jinki do him favours that need not be done only to let him feel useful in a time where nothing can make it better. Taemin lets Jinki feel like the hero in a dilemma with no chance of being rescued. Jinki knew this and Taemin knew this, but to pretend life may be looking up is better to bask in harsh reality. Taemin knows - Jinki knows, no matter how hard he tries, this time, it can't be kissed better. 

Once Taemin was gone he wouldn't know how Jinki was. Perhaps he believed in that stuff - heaven and an afterlife and such, but also faced the fact that if nobody had been sent messages from their love ones from beyond the grave before, he probably wouldn't be the first. Jinki knew Taemin would have to go eventually. When it got too much to handle and when Taemin finally couldn't make half a breath anymore even with the oxygen - when Taemin would cry in his sleep because he couldn't bear to do it on Jinki's chest once more, even if Jinki abstained for the same reason. There was no talking about the future because they knew Taemin didn't have one, even if Jinki did. 

It hurt to think about it. Hurt more than the constant near drowning and more than the intestinal complications. More than lung biopsies and nurses poking things wherever they seemed to desire. It hurt to know Jinki lived past him. To know Taemin was in the winter of his life when Jinki had only nearly blossomed into spring. No matter how much it hurt Jinki, how much he hated seeing the one he adored struggle to do something every human seemed to never even think of doing, Taemin knew it would get easier for him. It would get worse - horrible, when Taemin finally flatlined - but it would get better. Over the years, after the wake, the funeral, after a long enough period of mourning for people to start criticizing their relationship without feeling shame for speaking ill of the dead, Jinki would smile. He would meet someone. Someone not terminal. Someone would could withstand light foreplay without having to call an ambulance. Someone without an oxygen line and someone without a feeding tube. Someone with a life that wouldn't end before their relationship even begun. 

Resentment was an ugly trait, and Taemin knew it was horrible to think things like these, because in the end Jinki would be in more pain if he had is way. If Jinki vowed to never be with anyone else, he would go mad. And Taemin wanted Jinki to be happy. God, he wanted him to be happy. It was so rare to see that smile these days, and Taemin knew that that smile made everyone feel so loved, because it was Jinki's way of showing his true feelings. The way others would use words or hugs the older man would use a bone cracking beam. The sun would shine from inside his heart, that boy glowed with love and warmth and being the one to make that happen was a blessing in itself. Years from now, Taemin won't know. As much as it hurt to think at the moment he knew he wouldn't be hurt when it happened, because nothing would. When Taemin was gone, when Taemin couldn't see the things that hurt him, he hoped Jinki found someone who made him smile the way he use to before Taemin first struggled to find a breath. Or even wider. 

It's odd when things get better. Actually better. Great, even - wonderful. After a death four years in the making Taemin's not sure how to feel when he's told its cancelled - he can stay. It feels wrong, selfish. All those other people who could have gotten the lungs are gone and Taemin is sitting up straight for once, taking deep breaths into crisp, dry lungs that aren't his, overstaying his welcome on the planet. It's like he had spent his life preparing for this day, mentally equipping himself to know that when it's the end - it's the end, and he should just let it happen, not struggle, it's easier that way, the doctors said. But now the preparations were futile. Four years of pain and suffering to only fix the problem in a matter of hours - a car crash, organ donor killed, perfect match. Taemin's handed a clipboard with pages upon pages of risks and complications Taemin doesn't understand and isn't expected to before he's made a quick signature and he's wheeled off to be prepped for surgery, a new life ahead of him from where he lay previously rotting away in a hospital bed, Jinki asleep at home completely unaware that the love of his life had rewritten his ending. 

Everything's quiet suddenly. Without heart monitors and tubes and pagers beeping in hallways, without the constant, distant sounds of people rushing around, worried, anxious, it's silent. In Jinki's apartment, two weeks later, on his sofa with a cup of coffee clutched between his palms, breakfast half eaten on the table, solid foods are still difficult to get through. Taemin taps his nails against porcelain, making rings blossom from the middle of his reflection in the now lukewarm brown liquid. The only sound to be heard the fan on Jinki's computer, left open for convenience, his fridge compressor clicking on into a dull hum. And Jinki's feet shuffling over tile to carpet to directly in front of Taemin. A wide smile plastered on that round face when he leans down to kiss the corner of Taemin's lips, tender, gentle, kind - as Jinki always is was with him - before he stalls in the doorway on his way to work for the third day in a row, staring back at the younger man, feeble and alone on the sofa, so small, so tired. He couldn't bear to leave him, as much as Taemin insisted he was fine to be alone. 

"I'll call in sick." 

He cried when he found out. Of course he cried. It was expected, but still hurt to watch, even if they were happy tears. He sat away from Taemin, as close as can be without pressing their bodies together - fresh stitches, not a good idea. On the edge of the bed with Taemin's bare legs dangling out of his soon to be never worn again hospital gown, Jinki's touching the floor, solid, both his hands wrapped around one of Taemin's tight as he sobbed, not able to stop tears from falling to his lap and the hospital blanket, Taemin's knuckles and his own. Jinki kissed him with such a deep passion Taemin felt tears run down his own cheeks then, over the palms that pressed against Taemin's jaw and down his wrists to where his own hands grasped. A kiss into a mess of emotion to Jinki holding Taemin to himself as best he could without hurting him. Jinki sobbed into Taemin's hair with a protective grasp around his shoulders, vowing to never leave Taemin like he was suppose to leave Jinki. To protect him and keep him out of harms way because there was no way in hell Jinki would _ever _let something as horrid as his previous future happen. Jinki vowed, with lips pressed against Taemin's temple so numb the growing headache from tears and stress and over exertion of emotion - that he would never let anything hurt Taemin like that ugly disease was suppose to.__

**Author's Note:**

> (If it's not completely clear, Taemin has Cystic Fibrosis.)


End file.
